BURT REYNOLDS, CANDACE BERGEN, JILL CLAYBURGH 'STARTING OVER'

Burt Reynolds in WHITE LIGHTNING (Reassessment Review) Year: 1973 Rating: ****

There are two things that connect the romantic-comedy STARTING OVER with Burt Reynolds' career breakthrough DELIVERANCE: he doesn't have the defining mustache, and it's not a "Burt Reynolds Movie" but a movie he co-stars in with other people...

Successful TV-writer and future mogul James L. Brooks' original script is directed by Alan J. Pakula, more prone to political thrillers... and he's about as comfortable here directing as Burt is being basically stuck in a vehicle that would have far better suited an Alan Alda, Henry Winkler or Charles Grodin type...

Burt Reynolds and Jill Clayburgh in STARTING OVER

As least a genuine comedic actor would have attempted adding spark to this newly-divorced man, thrust back onto the big city dating scene of endearingly neurotic women... and while it's good Burt was able to NOT portray another cocky playboy, and actually function as a humble human being, he's simply too good-looking to be an average face-in-the-crowd junior-college instructor who, like in SEMI-TOUGH, winds up instantly smitten with Jill Clayburgh, who seems more like his progressive librarian aunt, modelling an offbeat personality based on Diane Keaton in ANNIE HALL...

Meanwhile Candice Bergen as Burt's songwriting ex-wife is even worse at comedy than drama... Never a good actress to begin with yet always extremely beautiful, we don't know enough about how their marriage was during the good times for their breakup and predictable reconciliation to matter...

Burt Reynolds in STARTING OVER

Brooks would end-up writing/adapting and directing much better cinematic soaps with BROADCAST NEWS, AS GOOD AS IT GETS after beginning with the game-changing TERMS OF ENDEARMENT... which was supposed to have Burt play the womanizing astronaut that gave Jack Nicholson his second Oscar...

But what Brooks saw in Reynolds based on this performance is as enigmatic as whatever Reynolds saw in a script that doesn't even allow him to return to his genuine acting-for-the-sake-of-acting roots... or to stretch himself in what's an intentionally grounded romantic-comedy where he basically sleepwalks for two extremely long hours.